This is Cool!

Just horsing around with photo sharing tools. This one is pretty neat!

K12 Online Conference is AWESOME!!!

This is an outstanding professional development opportunity that is going on right now, and it is FREE!!! The conference primarily focuses on what it means to teach and work with the "21st Century Learner." As a result, a large focus of the conference deals with the tools of 21st Century Teaching and Learning. I've watched several of the presentations and came away with many practical and applicable ideas for use here at USM. For example, one of the presenters talked about how special ed teachers in his district are using Google Docs to support the students they are working with. Student share/collaborate their google docs file with their special ed teacher, and the special ed teacher is then able to provide the appropriate scaffolding at every step of the writing process without having to be in the classroom looking over his/her shoulder.

There are many other excellent ideas to mention, but I want to keep this post reasonably short. If you are interested in the K12 Online learning conference, visit: http://www.k12onlineconference.org/ . You can visit the website and watch the presentations any time you want, even after the conference is over. Click the schedule link at the top of the page to see the full schedule of events and to view the presentations.

If you feel inspired by a presentation at the conference, leave a post here at the Middle School Professional Growth Blog (or on your own blog!)

Cheers!
~Matt

10 Minute Tour of the MS!

A few weeks ago I was walking down the hall and noticed quite a few interesting lessons involving technology taking place at the same time. So I quickly grabbed a camera and took a few photos. All photos were taken within 10 minutes. Yesterday I made a "VoiceThread" with these photos. VoiceThread is an online tool that allows you to quickly create a web based slide show with narration. Voicethread would be a great tool for students to use in creating web based multimedia projects.

Below is the voicethread (go easy on me--this is my first voice thread!)

LMAIS Technology Group-Fall Meeting at USM

On Thursday, October 11th, the Academic Technology Dept. hosted the fall meeting of the Lake Michigan Area Independent School Tech Coordinators meeting. Nearly 25 people representing close to 20 schools were in attendance. A big part of the meeting centered around Web 2.0 and the classroom of the future. Our complete agenda and meeting notes may are online at a wiki...click here to see the notes.

Solar Power 2007 Conference

I was fortunate enough to attend the Solar Power 2007 industry conference in Long Beach, CA through a grant I received from the renewable energy department at WE Energies. I was at the conference from September 23rd-September 27th.

Pictures, videos, notes and reflections may be viewed at the following website:
http://solarpowerwegrant.blogspot.com/

Summer Service Project

This past July, several members of the USM community* were involved in a FIRST EVER summer service -learning project at Gray's Academy in Milwaukee. In three short mornings, a beautiful flower bed surrounding the flag pole was prepared and planted, a second floor class room was painted, and a baseball field was measured and the baseline "carved out" via a sod cutter. All participants agreed that it was time well spent "doing good".

*
Geralyn and Conor Cannon
Harriette and Kathy Hauske
Anne and Matthew Schumaker
Jim Walzac (Landscape Architect) and his helper Brian
Chuck Kendall (Friend of USM)
Cheryl Bair
Dolores Kendall

LMAIS Technology Group-Spring Meeting

Our spring meeting for the LMAIS Tech Group that I'm part of took place at Lake Forest Country Day School on Thursday, April 19th. Our meetings provide a nice opportunity for everyone to get together to exchange ideas and talk about what everyone has been up to in the area of educational technology. I won't bore anyone with the details...instead I'll leave a link below for a summary of the meeting:

Spring Meeting Summary Link

As a side note, LFCDS recently completed a major addition and remodel project. As we prepare for phase II of our remodel, I would recommend that they be used as a resource. They did incorporate many green concepts and techniques (eg-bamboo flooring) during their process, even though it wasn't a LEED certified building.